Ecom goin mad...

Woke up this morning to a plethora of ads from snapdeal, Amazon and Flipkart.

The world is available at 50 cents to the dollar on these sites it seems. Well .. Play on..

On a related note, kids subscription games are getting interesting traction. Flinto. has raised funding and another one named Raffy just been rolled out by an IIM Indore alumnus.

Of course, there used to GlobeTots started by an idiot and not continued... But that story is to be narrated on whisky and/or syringes

But seriously , are these content toys the need of the hour?!??

Can't someone just put together all the available branded goods into a package for 3-yr olds, 4-yr olds and so on

So- a 3yr old package may consist of a funskool toy, a Thomas train, a mini encyclopaedia etc. A package could have a fun toy, a learning toy, a soft toy and some utilities . Just out it all together and reduce the parents' work of searching and selecting.

Simple enough.. But a bit of work putting it together..

The Asian Geames ... And Sarita Devi

Very avidly follow the Asiad and Olympics. It's a habit from Seoul 1986. This Asiad- we seem to continue with decent performances in a few disciplines. More on that in a day or 2

Today, am torn on the Sarita Devi issue. As a background, she lost the semi final boxing bout to a Korean ( the games are being held in Korea). Seemingly the referees were very unfair to Sarita. She should have clearly won.

In response, Sarita refused to accept the bronze and left the medal on the podium amid tears- creating a major controversy. Is that not-so-good behaviour from a sportsperson?

This now is a very difficult issue to judge.

Bad refereeing is a part and parcel of sport. Home biases are common. I remember Leander Paes once beating the mighty Goran Ivanasevic in a Davis Cup game in Delhi-aided by a dubious foot-fault call against Goran!!

Bad refereeing tends to even out over a career. Ask Sachin !! Given out LBW by Harper when the ball hit his shoulder (Adelaide 1999, 2 days before I took CAT). So, as a sportsman, you gotta take it in your stride with chin up!

So was Sarita wrong?

Her side of the story is equally justifiable. She has got back to the game after a kid- amazing sacrifice ( just a year after a kid).

In cricket etc, you get many chances at glory. In boxing, you get Asian Games once in 4 years. Olympics too, but that's a tough field.

She must also be seeing that after years of sacrifice, if she wins a medal, there is a shot at fame... A la Mary Kom

This is a tight call and I guess no real right or wrong. But push comes to shove, I think she should make the point and protest. The Indian officials should do an official protest and follow up. Media should go next bang-bang. But she should accept the bronze medal in a sporting manner I think

P.s. Need to get into some level of greater detail on the last post on real estate models. Will do so in days to come

Real Estate startups in the USA

Am just trying to (from memory) put down the various categories of RE startups popular in the US of A. Curiosity more than anything else:

1) Redfin/ Trulia/ Zillow: Classic broker driven marketplaces with a whole lot of data. Free for customers, charge brokers. Large listed companies

2) Urban Compass: Will assign the customer an agent for a personalised apartment search. Charge customer as well. Kick-ass model

3) Lovely/ Cozy: Rental marketplace where you can find homes for rent & also manage the rental payments etc

4) Realty Mogul: Crowdfunding real estate projects (using a trustee company which acts on behalf of all the people who contribute funds)

5) CompStak: Crowd sources lease rate data in the ultra competitive commercial leasing space. Uses an innovative method whereby brokers provide the data in exchange for access to data from others. Charges banks/ funds for access to the valuable data

6) 42Floors etc: Focussing on commercial leasing with very high end & close-to-real pics

7) Floored: Helps create videos for your space using 3D technology

Phew...thats a helluva lot of models and I am sure I have missed a few more 

Back after a break...with a thought..a few thoughts..

Am thinking there should be a campaign to reduce honking in our main cities. I know India has bigger problems, but I cant do much about them (right now). But I could probably galvanize some action around "no honking".  How should the campaign go? Lemme try & write it up:

Am very reliably told that writing indeed helps firm up thoughts.

1. Objective
Create a campaign to reduce honking- following a 3-pronged sequential approach:
- 1st: target car owners who drive
- Then: target drivers via their owners (i.e. owners who dont drive to tell their drivers to not honk)
- & finally: the auto & cab drivers

Its understood that a country like ours will need honking from time to time. Idea is to limit the honking to when it is critically required.

2. Specs
Name: No Honk
Tagline: Dont honk unless necessary
Logo: A horn with a cross against it

3. Details? Next steps? Along with Q marks..
- Create a working group
- Design logo
- Print stickers & badges
- Have a blog & FB page up & running
-Distribute the sticks & badgers at various places  (need to think this through, atleast in early phase. Eventually it could be distributed anywhere from a Coffee Day to a petrol pump)
- Targets? need some nos 
- How to measure impact? Critical to scale this..
- How much money is needed for a sort of Phase1?

Issues
- Working Group? Who can join?
-Who will distribute the stickers/ badges & how initially? - Best I can think of is to start with a bunch of offices...(someone distributing the stuff outside offices)

4. What I would like to know? & all of this should be part of the website/ FB updates
- The impact on BP of random honking
- Noise pollution impact of honking
- Situations when it is ok to honk (i guess when you are just about to hit a vehicle/ a living thing)
- When should you absolutely not honk?For e.g.,  avoid honking at signals..you know when the signal turns green & all honk- assuming that the jerk ahead of you would rather spend the afternoon on the road.

As with any thought converted to written words, more questions than answers......

Day 4

Sleeping..the world rocks, she thinks

Trying his hand ...

Hmm..many people, many ways..find ur path, son...

Day 2

Less grumpy now?